Request for information on Hugh Robertson on Arctic Convoys

A reader, Ann Ross, has been kind enough to send us the few details she has regarding her uncle, Mr Hugh Robertson who was born in 1904. Prior to the second World War war he lived in the village of Belford in Northumberland.

Her cousin had told her the names of the ships her uncle, bis father, had served in, including duty on the Arctic Convoys, but has now forgotten them and has no records of them.

The family believe that High Robertson served on the Russian Convoys from the early 1940’s, most likely on the Murmansk route.

He was in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regiment and was posted to the Convoys as a gunner.

He did various jobs on the ships including acting as a cook – and was popular aboard because he could play the bagpipes having learned while in the Argylls.

In the photograph of some of the crew, repeated in larger form below, Hugh is the chap sitting at the bottom left of the group.

Ann says he was a cheerful chap but she remembers her mother commenting on how subdued he was on return from his tours of duty.

He had described the frightening conditions, especially the hazardous task of trying to chip away the solid ice from the decks and railings.

Ann would be interested to hear any other information other readers of For Argyll – and especially those connected with or having an interest in the historic Arctic Convoys – may have or may be able to find out about her uncle.

We are passing on this information to our contacts amongst the veterans of the Arctic Convoys and to the team at the Russian Arctoc Convoy Museum project at Aultbea on Loch Ewe Wester Ross, the place for the gathering of many of the convoys for their nightmare passage north to Murmansk..